Poster #64 - The Question of Bidirectionality: Linking Parenting and Problem Behaviors in a Longitudinal Twin Design

• In Event: 2-163 - Poster Session 08
  In Poster Session: PS 08 Section - Developmental Psychopathology

Integrative Statement

Although harsh parenting is consistently found to be associated with internalizing and externalizing problem behaviors in children (Williams et al, 2009), few studies have examined longitudinal bidirectional associations between parenting and problem behaviors or decomposed genetic and environmental contributions. Indeed, most studies have examined such bidirectional associations in adolescence (e.g., Burt et al., 2005), rather than earlier in development when parents play a larger role in the everyday proximal environments of children. Thus, the purpose of this study was to examine these relations utilizing a short term longitudinal design in middle childhood from eight to nine years of age. We hypothesized that there would be bidirectional effects of parenting and children’s problem behaviors (i.e., internalizing, externalizing, ADHD) across these ages. Furthermore, we used the cotwin difference design to further understand these relations.
Data were collected from 273 twin pairs currently participating in an ongoing twin project. Approximately 51% of the sample were female: 56% European American, 23% Latino, 4% African American, and 17% mixed or other race/ethnicity. Twenty-nine percent were monozygotic, 38% were same-sex dizygotic, and 33% were opposite sex dizygotic twins. Primary caregivers (95% mothers) completed the Parenting Styles and Dimensions Scale (Robinson, Mandleco, Olsen & Hart, 1995) and Health and Behavior Questionnaire (Armstrong, Goldstein, & The MacArthur Working Group on Outcome Assessment, 2003) when the twins were eight and nine years old. Mothers answered a subset of parenting questions separately for each twin and a composite of four related items was formed, representing harsh discipline practices specific to each twin.
Correlations showed that early problem behaviors were related to later parenting and vice versa (see Table 1). Internalizing, externalizing, and ADHD problem behaviors were positively correlated both cross-sectionally and longitudinally. We then utilized a panel model, accounting for twin interdependence, to isolate cross-lagged influences from concurrent associations and auto-regressive stability of each construct. With this strict model, only one significant path remained: early parental warmth negatively predicted later externalizing symptoms (see Figure 1). Utilizing the cotwin difference design, the differences in harsh parenting at 8 years positively correlated with differences in externalizing (r = .52, p< .01) and ADHD (r= .45, p< .01), but not internalizing (r=-.13, ns) symptoms at 9 years. When controlling for genetic effects by utilizing only the monozygotic twins in the sample, the correlations between harsh parenting and problem behaviors were no longer significant, indicating that they were due to genetic rather than environmental influences.
Findings suggest that parental warmth is protective for externalizing symptoms in middle childhood, and interventions to reduce problem behaviors in middle childhood should consider increasing parental warmth. Interestingly, the association appears to be genetic rather than environmental in nature, suggesting that children’s heritable traits may be evoking harsh parenting. Thus, findings provide evidence for parenting-driven and child-behavior-driven effects. Future research should utilize genetically informative designs to further explicate child and parent effects on parenting—problem behavior associations across developmental stages.

Authors

• Navneet Kaur, Arizona State University
  Presenting Author

• Martyna Sawicka, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Karina Sokol, Glendale Community College
  Non-Presenting Author

• Leah D. Doane, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Mary C. Davis, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kathryn Lemery-Chalfant, Arizona State University
  Non-Presenting Author